Comments

Yes. But you can do a trick where you duplicate the object (so that is exactly in the same spot) and turn all materials to black - except the rotor and blades. Then apply the blur effect to that layer.

Of course you'll want to turn the blades/rotor to black on the original model, as well.

So the bottom line with this technique is to make sure the rotor and other parts you want to animate are in groups within the object before importing. Doing this avoids the "make black" technique.

The catch is you have to have that all ready to go before importing. Once imported, you can't go back and select different groups for animating in HF. Just have to plan ahead. Otherwise you're stuck with the "make black" trip.

The All-black method works, but it's a technique developed in Hitfilm 2 Ultimate and, with later versions of Hitfilm there's an (arguably) better way to do it.

Starting with Hitfilm 3 any individual model or submodel (animation group) can be parented to its own point (just a useful aside), and each individual model/submodel/animation group has its own Transform controls.

So instead of making duplicate models in the media pool and adjusting materials, duplicate the original model on the timeline. On the fuselage copy twirl down into the model controls and individually scale the rotors to 0%. On the rotors layer, scale everything but the rotors to 0%.

This assumes (HF3/4/2017) both layers are 3D Unrolled or (HF 2017) the rotors layer is using the fuselage layer as its depth source with both layers in 2D.

@Stargazer54 only speaking for myself, it's on the list, but I worked on my "curriculum" order for a year, and the 3D models series comes after editing, comp shots, 2D/3D space, compositing and blend modes, lights, cameras (action!), Keyframing...

3D models is actually in a "toss up" position. I'm not certain if that's going to be before or after the particle sim.